The Emergents are led by a smiling deceiver, Tomas Nau, his sadistic assistant, Ritser Brughel, and personnel genius Anne Reynolt, once Nau’s greatest adversary, now enslaved and Focused. Those Focused are instilled with unswerving loyalty. The Emergents’ overwhelming advantage is Focus, the result of a brain-infecting virus that can be induced to secrete mind-controlling chemicals. Cooperating at first, the Emergents later mount a treacherous sneak attack, defeating the traders and enslaving the survivors. Also arriving at OnOff are the acquisitive, ambitious Emergents.
During the Dark, they survive frozen solid in pools of ice. Meantime, its single planet harbors intelligent aliens, the Spiders, divided into warring factions, but thought to be descendants of an advanced starfaring civilization. Some 8,000 years hence, the Qeng Ho interstellar trading fleet investigates the enigmatic OnOff-a star that shines for 35 years, then extinguishes for 250 once understood, its weird physics may yield an improved star drive. A distant prequel to Vinge’s 1992 masterpiece, A Fire Upon the Deep, with a single character in common.
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